Page 150 of Rhodes

Cooper is in the kitchen when I come inside, standing at the island with a knife in one hand and half a ham sandwich in the other.

“You look stressed. You sleeping okay?”

I throw a loaf of bread at him. They all think that is the best joke now.

“I'm thinking.” I shrug out of my coat and hang it on the back of a chair.

"Can I help?"

“Our cured shell supplier is tapped out.”

He takes another bite. “So call another one.”

“Why didn't I think of that? You're a genius. We can get what we need by piece-mealing, but that's not ideal. The bigger issue is moving it here without spending stupid money.”

Cooper chews for a second, then points the knife at me. “Call Rhodes.”

My hand stops halfway to the refrigerator. He says it so casually that for a second I think I heard him wrong.

“What?”

“Rhodes. Call him. I'm pretty sure he can help you.”

I open the refrigerator and stare into it without seeing anything useful. “Why would I call Rhodes? What does he have to do with cured oyster shells?”

“He's in logistics, remember? He coordinates suppliers and freight for smaller projects now. And New Orleans goes through enough oysters that somebody down there has to have shells.”

I shut the door.

“Seriously?”

Cooper gives me a look. “Uh, yeah.”

“He told me at The Boot he'd gone to work with Cain, but I never got the job description. Why does that seem so crazy?” I ask snarkily.

It looks like he’s going to push back, and then he drops it.

“Valid. Rhodes is handling a lot of the operations work for the smaller logistics loads. He does vendor sourcing, transportation, getting weird shit from one place to another when clients can't figure out how to do it themselves. That’s why I was thinking he could help.”

I lean against the counter.

“That's his job, huh?”

“He was in Texas last month because somebody needed equipment moved through three states without shutting down production. Before that, I think he was in Mobile chasing down some supplier problem.” Cooper takes another bite of his sandwich. “This sounds exactly like something he'd know how to handle.”

Cooper wipes the knife on the edge of his plate.

“You've already got the restoration plan. You know what you need and when you need it. You're just looking for somebody who can pull it from a few places and figure out the cheapest way to get it here.”

I turn away and pull a glass from the cabinet.

Behind me, Cooper says, “Why are you acting weird about this?”

I fill the glass from the tap and drink half of it before setting it down. "I'm not. I'm thinking."

"Okay," he says with his mouth full. He opens the trash bin and throws away his napkin and puts the plate in the sink.

“There are plenty of logistics companies,” I say finally.